zompist bboard

I started toying with my oldest conlang's grammar, and I decided to scrap all of the noun cases and just two "states", which basically end up being the nominative and oblique cases, as I'm making the "construct" state used anytime there is a preposition, number, or genitive construction with the nou...

Does anyone know where to find resources on the grammar of the Romungro dialect of Romani? I know it is not the most documented dialect or language in the world, and it is somewhat endangered, but it's not *that* obscure; I found evidence of a book on the subject of Carpathian Romani grammar, but it...

Thank you, that helped a lot!

Can anyone solve this conundrum for me? When it comes to linguistics, let's just say "I'm still learning" (euphemism for very ignorant...) It's my understanding that a speech sound becomes voiced if the vocal folds are relatively relaxed, yet constricted in a way that the glottis (opening) is narrow...

Please have a look below. Some changes: /ng/ no longer exists as a nasal. It would be two separate consonants. Dipthongs are limited to /ay/ /ey/ /oy/ /uy/. If vowels must interact, they are separated by a glottal stop. The perfective preverb is now m-, not g-. /r/ is now reduced to a tap between vo...

Thank you both!

Still sounds super quiet though, not sure if you can hear the quality of the sound. Let me know

https://clyp.it/1r1nxqiw

I think this worked

** also, I think it is ingressive.

So I was toying around with a new phonology, one which I intend to have sound very non-human, and I wanted to include this certain sound... I just can't tell what it is. I was going to upload an audio file but my voice recording is very quiet, so it is too hard to hear that way. The closest approxim...

Spanish. I started learning 10 years ago, and thanks to a handful of peculiar job situations where I was asked to interpret, and living with a boyfriend for 2 years who is bilingual and whose family speaks only Spanish, I am basically fluent. I say basically because passively (listening, reading) I ...

One more comment: I noticed that the affixes for the ergative and the causative-final are minimal pairs. Ones which I find a tad difficult to distinguish in the middle of a word in rapid speech. Surely there is no problem with this, because if it is so crucial to meaning your native speakers would e...

Very cool! I like the protolanguage phonology and the past/non-past paradigm (I am a fan of these). I have two questions so far: I am not an expert linguistically so maybe there is a scientific justification for it, but why did all the consonants with diacritics in IPA simplify, like for example the...

Thank you for another response! All cases can take additional endings, but the accusative is the only one that requires a rearranging of sounds, primarily to avoid triconsonant clusters. None of the other cases present this problem. The motivation behind the deletion of y is mostly aesthetic, becaus...

I decided I hated the case system, it was aesthetically unpleasing and not the sound I was going for. I feel like this is better because it takes into account some new sound change rules I implemented for affixes, the morphemes are phonetically related to each other if they are also semantically rel...

I really like that you have a morpheme for urgency. d /d/ t / t̪ / like in Finnish Is /d/ also dental? Thank you! I had a few more unconventional clitics for random purposes but I threw them out based on aesthetics. Will probably make them free-floating particles. Oops, yeah. That means I need to p...

Just realized though, that many verb roots end in two consonants (e.g, <mert->)... I could say that because the verb always has to be found with some form, at least the aorist with the schwa sound at the end, that these don't count as words per se and it would be ok... the problem arises when the 3r...

How is this for a start on phonotactics? I removed /kn/ as an allowed onset, by the way. Phonotactics 1.) Nucleus must be a vowel 2.) No complex codas (no final consonant clusters) 3.) Complex onsets restricted to certain clusters, but due to suffixation, any two-consonant cluster may occur medially...

Also, while this is an agglutinative language, the stress is actually really important, because stress can be phonemic in this language (hence the use of the macron/acute accent) No reason why it shouldn't be. Agglutinative languages aren't less likely to have contrastive stress than other types of...

. I don't know if that makes sense, because technically there is a glottal stop before <ta>... can a glottal stop carry stress? It makes perfect sense. No, a glottal stop doesn't take stress. Consonants can take stress in some contexts but usually more sonorous ones like /m/ /n/ or /l/. Given your ...

Not at all, you;'re bringing up valid points that are helping me out. As this is my first time doing this, I am clearly leaving a lot out... sometimes intentionally, because certain aspects make my brain hurt a tiny bit more than excite the linguist in me. Also, while this is an agglutinative langua...

Yes, I see what you mean... I think. So, I will say that the same can be said for any word with an odd number of syllables. That final, odd-numbered syllable will not be stressed. <kalolmvanmin'ta> KAL-olm-VAN-min-'ta. The final clitic <'ta> is not stressed. teacher-CAR-1p.POSS-(emphasis clitic) ......

I have nothing constructive or specific to say, but this is so cool! I'm in awe at the intricacy and detail you've put into the information in this post and so many others on this board. Impressive.

stress: I was meaning to imitate the stress pattern of Hungarian, so what I meant to say was not "every third syllable" but every ODD numbered syllable. Does that make more sense? Definitely, Hungarian is basically trochaic. When you encounter a word with an odd number of syllables, does the final,...

stress: I was meaning to imitate the stress pattern of Hungarian, so what I meant to say was not "every third syllable" but every ODD numbered syllable. Does that make more sense? Yes, I meant the velar nasal. I will go back and edit it. I really prefer the macron instead of the acute accent, just v...